Last Coal Train 2022

Given what comes out manifests here as paranoid Express-level dross, I'm fine.

 

Generally converted to elemental sulphur, which is then used as a feedstock elsewhere in the chemical industry; most of it goes to make sulphuric acid.

Tom

 

Thanks. I'll look up what Sulphuric acid is used to produce.

Neil

 

Everything ...

Harking back to O-level geography, but a favourite point of the syllabus was that in industrial economies, sulphuric acid production was strongly correlated with economic activity. I suspect that linkage is weakened somewhat in service-based economies like ours, but sulphuric acid is at the heart of a vast range of industrial processes - notably fertiliser production.

Tom

 

Well, gentlemen, usefulness-wise, that certainly knocks my GCE O-level expertise in the prewar rice production of the Burmese Irawaddy Delta into a cocked hat!

 

True, but it is a " living thing" and like all living things it will eventually die. Many theories out there on the possible causes and timescales, but we are talking billions of years, so no point on starting a sweepstake to guess exactly when!!

 

In the interests of adding to the wonderful sense of doom and futility such discussions invariably arouse in some folks, the same is true of the entire universe. If current theories concerning G2V classification stars prove to hold good and you fancy the cremation option, you've only got around 8 billion years or so to act on your intentions, peeps. After that, it's a long slow cooling into universal oblivion at 0°K, for all eternity.


..... and that, folks, is my entry for 'Thread Drift of the Week'.